One author, indeed, in his theological zeal, went much further in modifying the conceptions of the habitable world.  A Christian merchant named Cosmas, who had journeyed to India, and was accordingly known as COSMAS INDICOPLEUSTES, wrote, about 540 A.D., a work entitled “Christian Topography,” to confound what he thought to be the erroneous views of Pagan authorities about the configuration of the world.  What especially roused his ire was the conception of the spherical form of the earth, and of the Antipodes, or men who could stand upside down.  He drew a picture of a round ball, with four men standing upon it, with their feet on opposite sides, and asked triumphantly how it was possible that all four could stand upright?  In answer to those who asked him to explain how he could account for day and night if the sun did not go round the earth, he supposed that there was a huge mountain in the extreme north, round which the sun moved once in every twenty-four hours.  Night was when the sun was going round the other side of the mountain.  He also proved, entirely to his own satisfaction, that the sun, instead of being greater, was very much smaller than the earth.  The earth was, according to him, a moderately sized plane, the inhabited parts of which were separated from the antediluvian world by the ocean, and at the four corners of the whole were the pillars which supported the heavens, so that the whole universe was something like a big glass exhibition case, on the top of which was the firmament, dividing the waters above and below it, according to the first chapter of Genesis.

[Illustration:  THE HEREFORD MAP.]

Cosmas’ views, however interesting and amusing they are, were too extreme to gain much credence or attention even from the mediaeval monks, and we find no reference to them in the various mappoe mundi which sum up their knowledge, or rather ignorance, about the world.  One of the most remarkable of these maps exists in England at Hereford, and the plan of it given on p. 53 will convey as much information as to early mediaeval geography as the ordinary reader will require.  In the extreme east, i.e. at the top, is represented the Terrestrial Paradise; in the centre is Jerusalem; beneath this, the Mediterranean extends to the lower edge of the map, with its islands very carefully particularised.  Much attention is given to the rivers throughout, but very little to the mountains.  The only real increase of actual knowledge represented in the map is that of the north-east of Europe, which had I naturally become better known by the invasion of the Norsemen.  But how little real knowledge was possessed of this portion of Europe is proved by the fact that the mapmaker placed near Norway the Cynocephali, or dog-headed men, probably derived from some confused accounts of Indian monkeys.  Near them are placed the Gryphons, “men most wicked, for among their misdeeds they also make garments for themselves and their horses out of the skins of their enemies.”  Here, too, is placed the home of the Seven Sleepers, who lived for ever as a standing miracle to convert the heathen.  The shape given to the British Islands will be observed as due to the necessity of keeping the circular form of the inhabited world.  Other details about England we may leave for the present.